Overall, I've absolutely no idea who's going to win. Quebec seems unlikely to give the Cons more seats, so really only Ontario matters to the results. Hopefully the suburbanites outside TO give another party a chance.

The media seems to be loving the orange wave story right now, but when they go off on those tangents it often doesn't mesh with the eventual results.

I'm half expecting a Conservative minority, or possibly a majority with the backwoods FPTP electoral system.

Libs voted for C51 so... meh. I'm over Trudeau. Which is fine, the Liberals would never beat the NDP in my riding anyway.

And Mulcair has been a vocal ally of NL, but we've not gotten the chance to see if he'd keep his promises and not fuck with us from Ottawa.

Gail Shea has got to go. I've never seen people as angry as they are about this halibut mess. It's just so blatant and offensive - and no one outside of this province would ever care, so that amps up the vitriol on VOCM, etc.

That's the most important thing to me, getting rid of her. Even more than Harper these days.

I'm half hoping the NDP might go a little nuts and offer to give us full jurisdiction over our fishery, or for Jack/Ryan to push for it. It's definitely being spoken about widely on Open Lines and the like.

__________________Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."

I never thought I would say this, but I will be voting Liberal and hope to see a Liberal minority government.

I hope the Conservatives still get a respectable number of seats and that Harper will resign.

I can't get on the NDP train. Not that I totally dislike them, but I can't really support them much either. My personal opinion is that their popularity is related to the fact that people are sick of the same ol Liberal vs. Conservative and they are something different. I don't think they don't have a solid foundation yet in this country.

I'd agree about the lack of foundation - but not in the inexperienced stereotype sense. It's like the idea Cons are good with finances when in reality they're probably the worst. I'm sure they'd be fine but it'd be a complex start. We will get an idea in how government takes shape in AB as they certainly didn't have much provincial NDP structure.

If Harper resigns I'll be able to consider all three parties. That'd be nice. It sucks when one is vendictive and against you. And the ineptitude... Cabot Tower closed for the summer? I mean, come on...

__________________Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."

The justice minister, a Nova Scotia MP, has an event scheduled with Prime Minister Stephen Harper at 4 p.m. ET this afternoon, at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton, N.S. CBC News will cover it live.

He will not resign his seat immediately, but will continue to serve in Harper's cabinet, sources tell the CBC's Chris Hall. In doing so, he saves the prime minister from having to shuffle his cabinet yet again to fill a gap from another departing minister.

MacKay's departure will leave a hole in the Conservative re-election game plan.

Viewed as the unofficial leader of the more centrist, former Progressive Conservative wing of Harper's caucus, his pedigree as the son of a Brian Mulroney confidante and stature as Harper's senior player in Atlantic Canada gave him influence few others have had with the prime minister.

It's sad to say, but I honestly believe the Conservatives will win the election. With the minority. Not what I want, but it might be the most probable result.

I think I'm in Jack Harris' district, so voting for anyone else would be silly; he's a loved MP and does his job well, he'll probably win again. I'm okay with that

Hopefully that clown Ryan Cleary gets the boot in the other city riding. Enough said. I don't care who replaces him.

I think everywhere else on the island will stay Liberal, with maybe the exception of Avalon (if the Cons are getting a seat, it'll be there. But I can't say for certain whether it'll happen, the ABC campaign may be felt for years and years to come)

Cleary had referred to NDP supporters as a "small pocket of aging granolas and artsy-fartsies" and that they were "a mainstream party that wouldn't win an election if Jackie Layton was given a 100-seat head start."

I don't believe he's had a change of heart; I think he's the ultimate opportunist. Most politicians are opportunists, but everything he does (to me, anyway) is fake and a farce.

I think once you become a politician, most people just start to hate you regardless.

Of course. Anytime you get into the public eye you're always going to have a lot of people who absolutely despise you regardless whatever you do. It is the nature of public life.

A lot of people underestimate how hard it is to be a public figure. The door to door salesmen aspect of it (you have to be willing to listen to people slam the door in your face or even potentially deal with physical altercations), the hard bargaining you have to do to get anything of consequence done (even within your own damn party half the time), a million different interests pulling at you at every turn.

Public service is a paradox. While it comes with some power and prestige, it also comes with so much baggage that it takes a lot to want to participate. And often you find most politicians still never achieve the financial success than if they went into the private sector, where you'd achieve financial and personal success without quite so much baggage. I think the nature of politics means a lot of the people that enter aren't always opportunistic, you have to want to do it as there are other, easier options many times for personal fulfillment.

At the end of the day most people who participate do have to maintain a strong willpower to be a part of the system. Anyone can be a critic, we all have opinions, but to actually do something and put yourself out there is something else entirely.

Just look at this forum, the few voices here and our own opinions. Multiply that by tens of millions. Everyone *always* has an opinion and everyone can easily be a critic. Doing something about it? It does take a lot out of you.

You just have to weigh your options based on all the issues. I think Mulcair has a generally sound platform, however some of the statements he's made on Quebec and separatism bother me more than Trudeau's support of c-51. Trudeau is not exactly into limiting civil liberties as he's spent a lot of political capital making marijuana decriminalization an issue and reversing a lot of these get-tough, build more prison Harper policies. He's been willing to expend political capital on that when other politicians haven't. All things considered, Trudeau certainly hasn't lost my support even if I think he's mishandled c-51.

With that said, Mulcair has demonstrated a proper stance against c-51. On this issue, Mulcair certainly stands (in my view) on the right side of history. I have no harsh feelings toward either Trudeau or Mulcair, I think either would be tremendous improvement over the current gov't. I think it'd be beneficial if these two men work together since I think its highly likely that both the Liberals and NDP will hold the balance of power in October, with no clear majority of any party.

Its of course good to vote locally, because if I were in a riding that needed to sway either Liberal or NDP to beat the Cons, I'd vote based on local trends to hopefully get a Con loss for that riding. If your riding is already NDP, why not make it even yet more again? LOL

You just have to weigh your options based on all the issues. I think Mulcair has a generally sound platform, however some of the statements he's made on Quebec and separatism bother me more than Trudeau's support of c-51. Trudeau is not exactly into limiting civil liberties as he's spent a lot of political capital making marijuana decriminalization an issue and reversing a lot of these get-tough, build more prison Harper policies. He's been willing to expend political capital on that when other politicians haven't. All things considered, Trudeau certainly hasn't lost my support even if I think he's mishandled c-51.

With that said, Mulcair has demonstrated a proper stance against c-51. On this issue, Mulcair certainly stands (in my view) on the right side of history. I have no harsh feelings toward either Trudeau or Mulcair, I think either would be tremendous improvement over the current gov't. I think it'd be beneficial if these two men work together since I think its highly likely that both the Liberals and NDP will hold the balance of power in October, with no clear majority of any party.

Its of course good to vote locally, because if I were in a riding that needed to sway either Liberal or NDP to beat the Cons, I'd vote based on local trends to hopefully get a Con loss for that riding. If your riding is already NDP, why not make it even yet more again? LOL

Trudeau has also spoken about voting for Quebec separation with Harper as Prime Minister. So neither his or Mulcair's views are great regarding that issue.